Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy

They assume that premodern men were similar to modern Englishmen in their passions, not seeing that different men desire different things, and in particular that the desire for glory is fundamentally different from the desire for comfort. They therefore misunderstand the prephilosophic mind, believing it to be fundamentally motivated by self-interest, benefit, calculation, comfort, tit-for-tat reciprocity.